"I just have this notion things are off balance."
"This is forever, Isabeau," he said gruffly. "We belong together. This traveling through time together should prove that."
Dropping to the sofa, he pulled her on his lap. Isabeau put her head against his chest and they sat there, content to be together. There were still loose ends that needed to be tied up, but they could wait. Isabeau knew her mission in coming here had been completed, but she still felt on edge.
#
Isabeau perched on a curved stone bench by the river's edge, the gardens flowering in vivid hues at her back. Maize sat beside her.
"Hawk is safe, as is Hawk's Den," Isabeau stated. "But when will Malry return? How can any of this work with Hawk and Pierce in the same time period?" she asked in frustration. "Malry should have been back by now."
"They will come," Maize said with certainty. "There is much to be cleared up in the investigation." The older woman delved into a deep apron pocket and held out to Isabeau a gold locket and chain.
Isabeau accepted it, studying the glint of gold as the sunlight caught it. Roses delicately twined along the surface of the locket, the workmanship and detail exquisite.
"It's beautiful," she said.
"It is yours. Call it a small thank you from Belva and I." Maize gently took her hand. "The history is old, but Treat was always jealous of his older brother, the true heir of his father. Brendon neglected Treat by not acknowledging him. That neglect and his mother's ranting about what was owed him allowed Treat's bitterness to flourish until it was out of control. Perhaps it was her indulgence that drove Treat to these acts against his brother. It is not for me to judge. All I know is there is a mother without a son, and a man without his brother.
"Nothing can repay what you and Pierce have done. It was all so complicated -- neither Belva nor I guessed Pierce was not our nephew."
"The amnesia complicated everything."
Belva opened her palm. "This you must take also." In her palm rested a man's ring. Black onyx with a fancy silver engraving along the band. A bird in flight was forever caught in the onyx.
Isabeau studied the ring, but her focus wavered. She rubbed her eyes.
"You must give this ring to Pierce."
"Why can't you give it to him?" Isabeau asked.
"You and he are connected through time. The ring must bear your energy and come from you. It could help in getting back to your own time."
"What if it doesn't work?"
"Then you stay here, my dear. I would not mind having you here, but I know you're anxious to go home, as you should be."
"Pierce wants us to be married."
"What have you told him?"
"What can I tell him?" Isabeau's voice reflected her despair. "God knows I would stay if it meant we would be together our entire lives."
"No one knows for certain what hand fate may play."
Placing the chain around her neck, Isabeau touched the locket as it rested against her breastbone. The ring bit into her palm as she tightly closed her fist.
"What if I forget everything that happened here when I return?" She noticed the darkening sky as a storm moved in. "If I can't find Pierce or he no longer loves me, what then?" Maybe if her memory was erased, she wouldn't have this ache in her heart.
#
The following day Isabeau still couldn't shake a disturbing lightheaded feeling. She sought out Belva in her rooms. She knocked briskly and Belva opened the door immediately. The older woman stepped back, indicating with a sweep of her arm Isabeau should enter the room.
"Welcome, Isabeau. How do you fare? Please come in."
Although it was a beautiful sunny day outside, the curtains in the sitting room had been tightly drawn. Two lamps were lit beside a table that occupied the center of the room, a chair on either side. A stack of heavy tomes sat on the floor beside one of the chairs.
"Come sit down," Belva invited. "I have been waiting for you."
Isabeau stared at the small table between the chairs. Numbers, letters and symbols had been crudely carved into the wooden table-top. It vaguely reminded her of a Ouija board a friend of hers had used when conducting séances for fun.
"Maize calls it my devil board," Belva said, lovingly tracing her fingers over the symbols on the wooden surface.
Isabeau noticed Belva's eyes looked strangely clouded.
"It speaks to me, Isabeau. This is how I conjure the spirits. They are all around us now. Can you feel them?"
Isabeau looked around warily. "I don't feel or see anything."
"I have researched how to reverse the spell to send you back."
"What about Pierce?"
"I believe it will work for Pierce also."
"You don't sound really certain. Can I see the books you've researched? Maybe I can help you figure out the spell or whatever it is."
Belva indicated the books beside her chair. "Can you read Latin?
"No."
"No matter. Please sit opposite me."
Isabeau, loathe to sit down next to the strange board, stood instead behind the chair. "I don't think so. I'm not ready to leave."
Belva raised her brows in surprise.
"What about Pierce?" Isabeau asked. "We have to go back together."
"There is no choice in the matter. All things were set in motion upon the first invocation. The spirit has indicated you will both go back. Time means nothing on the other side."
Isabeau stepped away from the chair and from Belva. She turned her head, looking quickly around the dark room. There was now an eerie mist swirling around their heads. It felt cool against her cheeks. She rubbed her cheeks and forehead. "No, Belva, I'm not ready."
She backed toward the door. Belva extended her hands over the table, and the fine mist concentrated into a thin line, hovering and entwining with her splayed fingers, like smoke from a fine cigar. Belva began to speak in a voice much deeper than her own. "Life is a serpentine, winding back and forth upon itself, a never ending circle."
Isabeau stood with her back to the door, gripping the glass knob. "Pierce and I need to return to our own time together."
"It is done," the voice said.
"Who are you?" she asked, unable to determine gender.
"A light being who moves between the three worlds."
"How do I get back?"
"It is as simple as walking through a door. Your life is on the other side."
"And what about Pierce?"
"His life is beyond an open door also."
"But will we both go through the same door?"
"That is by your own design."
The light from the lamps cast an eerie shadow across Belva's face.
"So you are to go back," Belva said softly in her own voice.
Isabeau nodded. "I just don't know when."
When Pierce came to find her, it was almost nightfall. Someone must have told him where she was, for he came immediately to the study. Isabeau looked up to see him standing in the doorway, a grin splitting his face.
It was almost her undoing, the joy on his face. His cloak was dappled with raindrops.
"It's beginning to rain."
"Yes, another storm moving in, my darling Isabeau," he greeted her softly, mouth quirked. "Miss me?"
"Always," she replied softly.
Concerned about the pallor of her face he came to her. "Are you still feeling ill?"
"I feel strange," she admitted, "not really ill, but weak."
"Come to my room. I'll prepare you a bath."
"At any other time that would be wonderful." But now she gripped his hands. "We need to talk before it's too late."
"What do you mean?"
"There's something you need to know." She closed her eyes, trying to push back the tiredness. "Belva conjured the spirits again while I was there in her room."
"What? What happened?" he asked, deeply concerned.
"Just that we are to go back. They -- she -- said it's like stepping through a door."
>
The rain began to beat at the windows. She could hear it lash the wood of the house.
"We hoped for this," he said. Pierce left her side, going down on one knee to stoke the fire. Although the embers licked greedily at an oak log, Isabeau could not shake a deep chill that felt more than physical.
They could suddenly hear voices from outside.
"Maybe that's Malry," Pierce said, turning his head to listen. "He and Hawk have been tying up loose ends."
Isabeau stood up, shaking her head. She moved closer to him. Her fingers caressed the wetness of his wool cloak.
He touched her forehead with the back of his hand. "I have to get the doctor in, you're burning up."
She gripped his arm. "It's happening. I feel it."
"What --"
"I have no choice, I never did. I love you."
Discarding his damp cloak, Pierce pulled her close. "You're as hot as blazes -- you need to rest. When you're feeling well again --" He grasped at straws in growing desperation.
She held the ring out to him. "You need to take this. Maize said it could be the way back."
Pierce stared at it but didn't take it.
"What if we don't remember?" she said, her gaze clinging to his.
"I won't let that happen," he said fiercely.
A loud banging began at the front door. Footsteps hurried through the foyer to answer the summons.
Isabeau moved away from him, toward the door.
"No!" Pierce yelled, "don't answer the door!" He moved toward her, eyes dark with pain.
She'd never forget that look.
"I won't let you go!" he said, but his voice sounded far distant from her.
Pierce lunged forward, trying to grab her hands but she had faded into the room.
Isabeau slipped down a tunnel, floating through a nothingness.
"Power from light, power from heaven, power from thine own self, power of thine own worth. Depart the one called, depart the one who will stay the turmoil. It is done. It is done, it is done."
The chanting faded to nothing.
#
"I'll find you!" Pierce shouted, even as he knew she was gone.
Something bounced on the wooden floor and hit his boot. Slowly, Pierce bent to pick up the black and silver ring.
Numbly, he dropped into a chair. Reaching inside his breast pocket he pulled out the journal. With tense fingers, he clutched the book, thinking for a moment about throwing it into the fire.
Belva came to stand in the doorway. "Good news! There are two coaches outside and it appears Malry has also arrived."
Easing his grip on the journal, Pierce opened it and began to write.
Voices came closer, laughing. Footsteps approached the study. Pierce paused his pen, looked up, met eyes so like his own.
Chapter Twenty
Isabeau jerked upright as a deep breath inflated her lungs.
"What's happening? Is she having convulsions?" The voices were faint, then gradually louder.
"Where the hell is 911?" Leif.
Isabeau opened weighted lids, her eyes huge dark pools in an otherwise ashen face.
She looked up into the concerned faces of Leif and Mrs. Cummin's.
"I'm okay," she croaked reassuringly. Realizing she was back in the present time, she began to cry. "I'm okay."
"Pierce is on his way. I've called him," Mrs. Cummins said, her voice growing faint again.
"Isabeau? Isabeau?" Leif's voice faded also.
#
"Pierce . . .." Isabeau murmured, snuggling into the bed covers. She woke abruptly, blinking several times at the bright sunlight weaving a path into her room. Her room at Hawk's Den.
Lying perfectly still, she gazed around the room.
The digital alarm clock read 11:45. She was back in her own time.
After a soft knock, her bedroom door opened slowly.
Leif put his head around the door. Seeing she was awake he walked slowly into the room. "Still in bed, well that's good. After that scare last night, you'd better continue to take it easy. I agree with the doctor, you're exhausted -- too many long hours, run down. You've slept since yesterday. I guess you really needed it."
Leif handed her a robe and she wandered over to the window, staring pensively at the familiar yard below. How many times had she looked out this window in 1894?
The gardens were neat and well manicured, the flowers abundant, drooping after the heavy rains. She shook her head, running a hand over her forehead. Memories from the past and the present had merged, leaving her confused.
"You really threw me for a loop, Isabeau," Leif admitted, "passing out like that."
"H-how long was I out?" She pulled at the collar of her robe. "Everything is still kind of hazy."
"Not long, I guess, ten minutes or so --"
Ten minutes! She had lived a month in the other time. Enough time to fall deeply in love with Pierce.
"-- so I suggest you take it easy."
She nodded.
"Pierce called again while you were upstairs. He had a problem with his flight, but he's expected in a few hours."
Isabeau jerked her head around. "He's coming?"
Leif laughed, as if she'd said something funny. "Of course."
She twisted her fingers around the robe's belt. What if he didn't remember her or the time they'd spent together? She clenched her jaw. She'd make him remember. But what if she couldn't?
Running her fingers along her scalp, Isabeau was astonished to discover her hair was still long, down over her shoulders. She had been so distraught the night before, she hadn't thought about it until this moment.
She ran to the bureau mirror and stared at her reflection, at the uncut, blonde swathe of hair. How odd -- the haircut Lila had given her had not transferred to this time.
"What's the matter?" Leif appeared at her shoulder.
"My hair --" Isabeau touched the light strands disbelievingly.
"All it needs is a good brushing," he reassured her. "You've got some serious bed head going on."
"Thanks," she said dryly, still staring at her reflection. Leif was looking at her strangely. "Maybe I should cut it," she mumbled lamely.
"Well, don't go and do anything rash," he said.
After he left, Isabeau rehashed all the events of 1894.
Was it all just a wonderful, wonderful dream? She couldn't shake the feeling of being out of sync, as if she was somehow displaced in her own world.
Where did she fit in?
Isabeau pulled the neckline of her robe closer, her fingers encountering something hard and warm at her breastbone.
Heart in her throat, she pulled the chain free. In fascination she turned over the gold locket, then closed her fingers tightly around it as hope surged in her.
Hands shaking with excitement and her cheeks flushed and hot, Isabeau quickly dressed in jeans and a T-shirt and ran downstairs to the library. Almost in a panic she searched for the Bible, then finally saw it high on a shelf.
She pulled the step ladder from the corner of the room and climbed the steps so she could reach the top shelf. Carefully, she lifted the volume down to place it flat on the desk surface. Slowly she turned page after page until she found what she was looking for.
'Deaths.' Hawk Morgan. September 21, 1934. Excited, she flipped back a page to 'Marriages.' The writing was a faded brown, as if it had been there a hundred years.
Hawk Morgan and Amelia Rymes, married June 30, 1894, issue of marriage, four children…
Isabeau closed the volume. Her trembling subsided, and peace stole over her. They had managed to change history. Hawk had survived, and there were others to carry on the Morgan name. She felt as if a lifetime of tension had fallen from her shoulders. Whatever happened from here on in, she could deal with it. Rubber soles squeaked on the hallway's marble floor. She went to the door and met Mrs. Cummins.
"Do you know where the family records are, Mrs. Cummins?"
"Most of the records are right here in these
cabinets." Mrs. Cummins opened a small closet. When she stepped back Isabeau saw the metal file cabinets lined up side by side.
"Leif said Pierce is on his way home," Isabeau said carefully, hardly able to contain her excitement.
"Yes, and I'm thankful. Imagine if he had missed his own engagement party."
Mrs. Cummins could have no idea of the crushing nature of her words. Isabeau watched numbly as the older woman laid out several folders.
"If you like you can rummage in here. I'll let you know when they arrive home."
"They?" Isabeau asked numbly.
"Pierce and his parents."
"His parents?" Isabeau couldn't help repeating what she heard. She felt panic welling inside. Everything was changing. Nothing was familiar. As far as she knew his father had died years before.
"Well, not just his mother and father -- but his brothers and sisters also." Mrs. Cummins hesitated, then added, "If you recall, they're all coming for the party."
Isabeau didn't know what to say. Her heart felt squeezed tight. Pierce was getting engaged. "For some reason I thought there was only his mother."
"Good heavens, no. Mr. Pierce's parents have been married some thirty-five years and there's six others besides Mr. Pierce."
"Oh," Isabeau said faintly. "Thank you, Mrs. Cummins."
The housekeeper turned to leave, but stopped by the door and turned back. "By the way, miss, you never did tell me if you're leaving right after the engagement party or not."
"Yes, yes, I'm leaving." God! She couldn't stay around and watch Pierce become engaged to another woman.
Feverishly, Isabeau looked through the record books. There were various articles on Virginia, Hawk's Den, and the surrounding county. But one article in particular drew her attention. It was a newspaper account of a fire that destroyed a cottage on the Sanderly estate in the year 1894. Inside the cottage they found the charred remains of Treat Sanderly, said to have been the illegitimate half-brother to Hawk Morgan. There was no mention of Mrs. Sanderly. In with that article was a notice of the marriage of Hawk and Amelia. She caught her breath in amazement at the grainy but rather well done photograph of the time. Hawk looked so much like Pierce with his lovely bride Amelia next to him! Malry stood with the couple, the bride and groom suitably serious. Malry wore a half grin and Isabeau again saw the seaman she had first met aboard The Lady.
Time Travel Romance Collection Page 27
